Setting Out the Tiles

In the setting out stages, it's important to make sure the tiles look straight from the entrance to the room. Often walls are bowed or out of true so check your measurements in several places along each wall.

1. Find the midpoints of the two longest walls. Stretch a chalk line - a length of line covered in chalk - across the room between these points and 'snap' it, tugging it sharply so that it snaps against the floor, to mark a line on the floor halfway along the room. Repeat for the shorter walls but adjust the line so that it passes through the centre of the first line at right angles.
2. Try to work with as many whole tiles as possible, even if it means adjusting the grout line width slightly. To do this, you could either use thicker spacers or simply make the gaps between the last few rows of tiles at the most inconspicuous end of the room slightly further apart or closer together.
3. Lay tiles along the two lines to check they look right from the doorway. If any gaps at the walls are less than half a tile wide, shift the line across to make more of a gap.